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Myth 2

You can’t contract Lyme disease in the winter.

The Truth

An average Deer Tick lives for two years and can survive in very cold climates. Although infection rates drop in the winter – primarily because people spend less time outdoors - it’s still possible to contract Lyme.

Bankhead T and Chaconas G. The role of VlsE antigenic variation in the Lyme disease spirochete: persistence through a mechanism that differs from other pathogens. Molecular Microbiology 2007; 65: 1547-1558.

Bayer ME, Zhang L, Bayer MH. Borrelia burgdorferi DNA in the urine of treated patients with chronic Lyme disease symptoms. A PCR study of 97 cases. Infection 1996; 24: 347-353. [97 patients who had been treated with antibiotics for extended periods of time and had symptoms of chronic Lyme were PCR-positive.]

Burrascano J. Failure of aggressive antibiotic therapy to protect the placenta from invasion by B. burgdorferi in a pregnant patient with Lyme borreliosis. 6th Annual International Science Conference on Lyme Disease and other Tick-borne Diseases.1993.

International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS). Evaluation of antibiotic treatment in patients with persistent symptoms of Lyme disease. www.ilads.org/position2.htm

James FM, JB Engiles, and J Beech. Meningitis, cranial neuritis, and radiculoneuritis associated with Borrelia burgdorferi infection in a horse. Journal of American Veterinary Medical Association 2010; 237: 1180-1185. [Horse was seropositive for Bb, and PCR assay of CSF for B. burgdorferi DNA was positive; horse was treated with doxycycline, responded well, then relapsed, treated with oxytetracycline and later died; diagnosis consistent with neuroborreliosis.]

Sung SY, McDowell JV, Carlyon JA, and Marconi RT. Mutation and recombination in the upstream homology box-flanked ospE-related genes of the Lyme disease spirochetes result in the development of new antigenic variants during infection. Infect Immun 2000; 68; 1319-1327.